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Behind Tsongas-Golnik debate claims, the facts

From health care to taxes to jobs, details tell more complete story

By Chris Camire, ccamire@lowellsun.com

Updated:
10/13/2012 08:03:55 AM EDT

U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas and her Republican challenger, Jon Golnik, unleashed a host of charges, claims and characterizations during Wednesday night's 3rd Congressional District debate in Devens. The two squared off on issues ranging from taxation, health care and job creation, to name a few. Here is a look at the truthfulness of some of their sharpest points.

CLAIM: Tsongas voted for a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical-device manufacturers before she voted against it.

Golnik hammered Tsongas during the debate for voting for the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in March 2010, knowing the legislation would be partly paid for with a tax on medical-device companies. That tax, which will be levied starting in January, could hurt the profitability of local medical-device companies, warned Golnik. Tsongas pointed out that in a separate June 2012 vote, she joined 37 Democrats to back a Republican-led effort to repeal the tax.

FACTS: Tsongas expressed concern over the medical-device tax's impact on businesses from the outset. Still, she has maintained the good in the health-care reform bill outweighed the negatives of the tax. It is important to note, however, that Tsongas worked to minimize the impact of the tax when Obamacare was first being crafted, joining with others to successfully urge congressional leaders to cut the proposed tax by almost half.

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While Tsongas did vote to repeal the tax two years after its initial passage, the measure had little chance of being signed into law. Days before the House vote was taken, Senate President Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he would not bring the measure up for a vote in the Senate. The White House also opposed the legislation and said in a statement that the president's advisers would recommend a veto if the bill reached his desk.

CLAIM: Gas prices have more than doubled. Food prices have gone up by 25-30 percent.

Golnik made this statement while answering the first question of the debate: "Are you better off today than you were two years ago?" Golnik used the figures to argue that the economic policies crafted by Obama, and supported by Tsongas, are not working.

FACTS: Food prices have increased over the past two years, but not by as much as Golnik claimed. The index measuring the average consumer price of take-home food (groceries) stood just 5.3 percent higher in August of 2012 compared to January 2011, when Tsongas started her current term, according to figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gasoline prices have also gone up during the past two years, but again, not by as much as Golnik stated. Gas prices have increased by nearly 20 percent nationwide since January 2011, according to the BLS. In January 2011, the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the Boston area was $3.13, according to GasBuddy.com, which tracks fuel prices supplied by a network of registered volunteers. Today, the average price is about $3.90 per gallon.

CLAIM: Obamacare cut $716 billion out of Medicare, which is going to cut down on reimbursements to doctors, nursing homes and hospitals.

This is worrisome, said Golnik, because it could result in health-care providers refusing to see Medicare patients.

FACTS: It is true that the administration is cutting $716 billion over 10 years from Medicare, mostly in the form of payments to insurance companies, hospitals and other providers. The cuts do not affect benefits for people currently in the Medicare program, however.

But Golnik is charging that Obama's reductions will force health-care providers to turn away patients.

According to FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan website that works to correct misleading political claims, Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, has said that his office's economic simulations suggest 15 percent of providers would become unprofitable within the 10-year projection period as a result of the adjustment in Medicare payment rates. That could lead some providers to "end their participation in the program," he said.

But Foster added that "this policy could be monitored over time to avoid such an outcome."

CLAIM: The United States has had 31 straight months of private-sector job growth.

Tsongas cited this statistic to argue that the $800 billion stimulus package she helped pass -- and Golnik opposed -- has helped the economy.

FACTS: Tsongas' figures are right, but they don't tell the whole story. The latest month-to-month dip in private-sector jobs occurred between January and February 2010. Since then, the country has seen private-sector jobs increase by nearly 5 million over 31 successive months.

Tsongas bolsters her argument by using private-sector job figures. Government jobs numbers are less impressive.

From May 2010 to July 2012, private payroll employment rose more than 3.9 million, while government employment fell almost 1.1 million, according to the Brookings Institution. The drop in government payrolls offset more than a quarter of the job gains in the private sector during this time.

The public sector has begun to rebound as of late, however. Federal, local and state governments added 10,000 jobs in September, and 63,000 jobs in July and August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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